Picoline

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Any of three isomeric methylpyridines, colorless liquids with an unpleasant odor that are used as intermediates in making chemicals and drugs
2. A colorless, pungent organic compound belonging to the methylpyridine family, employed as a starting material in chemical manufacturing
3. A methyl-substituted pyridine existing in three isomeric forms, valued as a solvent and as a building block in industrial chemistry

Etymology: Picoline takes its name from pitch, the sticky black residue left over from distilling coal tar. Chemists in the nineteenth century were working through the many compounds that tar yielded, and the substance was first isolated from bone oil and coal tar in that period. The name combines "pic-", from Latin "pix" meaning pitch, with the "-ine" ending that chemists used for organic bases, and the same tar-based origin also gave the parent ring of the family, pyridine, whose name comes from "pyr", Greek for fire, reflecting the way the material burned. The word is a coinage rather than an old term, built from classical roots to name a compound whose ancestry lay in an industrial byproduct. Its "-ine" ending matches other alkaloid-style names, while the "methyl" part of its chemical family refers to a single added carbon group attached to the pyridine ring. Because the three possible positions for that group produce three distinct isomers, chemists give each a prefix, such as "2-picoline" or "3-picoline," to say which is meant.

Synonyms: methylpyridine